{Originally published on Dadomatic.}

My dad is a great dad. He indelibly shaped my personality, mores, and outlook in life. Now that I am a dad too, I appreciate what he did even more. It wasn’t easy to narrow them down, but these the top ten lessons that he taught me.

1. Don’t take any shiitake from anyone. My dad was a state senator for twenty years, and he never walked away from a confrontation with the local newspapers, labor unions, and government officials. He taught me not to kowtow to anyone just because they are in lofty positions. This is a very useful attitude because if people sense that you don’t take any shiitake, they won’t give you any.

2. Obey your teachers. My dad taught me that teachers knew more than I did so I should treat them with respect. This was a rare exception to the “don’t take shiitake from anyone” lesson. Come to find out, (a) teachers very seldom dish out shiitake, and (b) they truly change the world (and not for the money), so they (c) deserve truckloads of respect.

3. Don’t follow the crowd. Initially, I thought that he was saying that most people were stupid–and I agreed with him. But I now realize that he was telling me not to follow the crowd because the crowd “mentality” can make smart people do dumb things. This is why I don’t believe in the “wisdom of the crowd” to this day.

4. Show some noblesse oblige. My dad was very big on the concept that people who are fortunate (in terms of power, prestige, or money) have the moral obligation to be kind, help others, and even answer their emails. By far, this is the most difficult lesson to implement if lots of people want something from you, but as my father taught me, you just have to deal with it.

5. Read. My dad taught me to love to read. We had hundreds of books around our house, and he bought me any book that I wanted. With his encouragement, I also spent hundreds hours in the public library too. This love of reading led to a love of doing research (in those days, in the World Book Encyclopedia!) and eventually to a love of writing.

{Originally posted on Zen Habits}

Every Friday is Health Tip Day at Zen Habits.

I have to admit that I have my ups and downs with the exercise habit.

So I know that it’s not the easiest habit for most people, and most
people’s experiences consist of starting and stopping and starting again. Which is fine — don’t beat yourself up about it. The important thing is starting again.

I’ve written before about how to build the exercise habit (and even have a guest post on it), but today I thought I’d revisit the topic for those who still have trouble.

The Main Problems

So why do most people have trouble making exercise a regular habit? Well, there are probably a number of factors, but here are the main ones as I see it:

1. Too difficult. People set out with a lot of ambition and enthusiasm, and start out with a big goal. “I’m going to go to the gym for an hour a day!” or “I’m going to run 30 minutes every day!” The problem is that the goal is too difficult to sustain for very long. You can do it for a few days, but you soon run out of energy, and it becomes a drag to do it.